


For All That Changes...

by morganoconner



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 10:18:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5924779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganoconner/pseuds/morganoconner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To a being who has witnessed the dawn of Creation, time should mean very little. Why, then, does fifty years feel like an eternity that Gabriel has missed?</p>
            </blockquote>





	For All That Changes...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kalakirya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalakirya/gifts).



> Kalakirya, this is not _entirely_ what you asked for, because Gabriel very rarely listens to me (or anyone, let's face it). But I think it's at least in the same spirit as your request, and I very much hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Beta'd by the always wonderful Miya, without whom, I would be lost. ♥

Fifty years never felt like such a very long time, before. Fifty years was a blink, to an archangel who had seen the dawn of Creation. Fifty years was a single breath, a solitary heartbeat.

Fifty years was an eternity.

His first breath after Kali releases him from her bond is taken just as the sun is rising above the ocean before him. That breath tastes of a freedom long forgotten. Kali herself stands at his side, blood dripping from her dark fingers. "What will you do now?" she asks, curious but mostly unconcerned now that her self-imposed mission has been accomplished.

Fifty years, he thinks again. Fifty years of being painstakingly put back together, the only thing keeping him tethered to life a bond to a goddess who hated him as much as she loved him. Fifty years of mindless solitude during her long absences as she searched out pieces of a grace that only still existed because it belonged to her. Fifty years of nothing but the sound of the ocean below this cliff and memories that were more painful than the point of his brother's sword.

Fifty years.

He takes another breath, the salt in the air sharp on his tongue.

"I have no frigging clue," Gabriel tells her, because he doesn't.

***

There's no place for him in the world. Most of the Old Gods are dead now, or hiding so well they may as well be. And the angels have left. Gabriel assumes they're all back in Heaven, but he can't hear even the faintest hint of angelsong; the choirs are silent to him. Maybe they're all dead, too. Or maybe he's just been cut off for good. He doesn't know what power he still has after his ordeal, doesn't dare try to spread his wings for fear that they won't respond.

Gabriel is used to being afraid. He's not used to letting it get the better of him, but it's been fifty years, so he thinks he's allowed a little leniency.

He comes across no demons or monsters, either. A few benign ghosts hang around, and reapers are still around when and where they're needed, of course, but Gabriel hasn't caught a whiff of anything else so far, and he's not sure what that means. The world as he last saw it was filled to the brim with almost as many monsters as there were people…they can't all have disappeared, right?

In any case, people – _humans_ – manage to persist. Still as flawed and broken as they always were, but a lot of them are still trying. Sometimes, Gabriel feels like they're doing a damn sight better job of going about their lives than he is.

He just doesn't know what he's supposed to do now.

So instead of doing anything, he wanders. And he watches. Takes note of all the things that have changed while he's been…away, and more importantly, all the things that have remained the same. The former seems to outweigh the latter by a distressing amount, but he takes comfort in what he can find that is familiar.

Like ice cream. Ice cream never changes. Gabriel eats an ice cream everywhere he goes. It becomes a ritual, something to keep him moving from one place to the next, gives him something to think about while walking.

(He walks everywhere. Public transportation is too confining, and he's ashamed to admit he never got the hang of driving without the assistance of grace or godhood. His feet never tire, and his legs eat up mile by slow mile, in no rush to get to any specific place.)

Gabriel doesn't keep track of the passage of time. Time was all he had for too long, and after fifty years of counting every breath, every heartbeat, every single _second_ , he's a little gun-shy of the whole damn concept. So, while time does pass, he doesn't know how much, barely even pays attention to the line between night and day or the seasons changing around him.

He tries not to think about being alone. He is, of course; as Gabriel or as Loki, there's no one left to care. Even Kali made it clear he was on his own from the moment she unbound him. He thought solitude like this would be a freeing thing, allowing him to breathe properly for the first time in a very long time.

It's not.

Even if he tries not to think about it, the isolation presses in around him like a stifling blanket, and Gabriel finds himself longing to be included with the people he watches instead of being the silent observer on the sidelines. It's not even a new feeling for him, though it takes him a good long time to remember that this is how the road to becoming Loki first started.

Gabriel shies away from people for a while after that. Not because he minded being Loki – it was fun while it lasted, and most of those people deserved everything he dished out – but he's still not ready to test his powers.

He is, he's mortified to realize, _afraid_.

Anyway, if cutting himself off even further makes the loneliness that much worse, well, at least Gabriel's used to being uncomfortable and unhappy by now.

(He tries, once, to remember the last time he felt…if not _happy_ , at least like he had a purpose. He sees the flash of his own blade in his mind's eye, hears his brother pleading for him to stand down, and quickly turns his mind to ice cream instead. Ice cream is safe.)

It's when he's keeping to the outskirts of society, determined to avoid as much of humanity as possible, that he comes across the Winchesters.

Of course it is.

The farmhouse is in the middle of nowhere, and Gabriel means to walk right by it, he really does, but something draws him closer in spite of himself. The only reason Dean doesn't see him is because he's sound asleep where he sits on the front porch, a sleek black cat stretched across his lap, snoring loud enough to wake the damned.

Gabriel shouldn't recognize him through the wrinkles and white hair and thick glasses. But Dean Winchester's soul shines just as brightly as it always did, and it's impossible to mistake him for anyone else. Something in Gabriel goes cold and then hot, shrinks back even as he draws forward. Senses open in a way they haven't been since his grace scattered, in a way he wasn't even sure was possible until right this second.

And now that he's open to it (against his will, as always, as everything with these boys always has seemed to be), he can feel Sam, too. Upstairs, also sleeping. Gabriel slips past Dean and inside before he can talk himself out of it.

He doesn't take in much of the house as he walks, though it's easy to tell that it's been lived in for some time. A dog in the corner of the kitchen lifts her head to gaze at him, but he lifts a finger to his lips and she decides he doesn't present a threat to her masters.

Up the stairs, down the hall. Sam's sleep is restless, his gnarled hand twitching where it rests against the covers, eyes flicking behind closed lids. His hair is whiter than his brother's, but still thick, and his wrinkles don't seem quite as pronounced.

He's also dying. Gabriel would bet he doesn't know it yet, the dark spot on his liver barely noticeable so far, but it will kill him.

Gabriel stares down at Sam and wonders a lot of things. What kind of life he's had, how he and Dean managed to last as long as they have. If he's happy. If he found a purpose even with nothing to hunt. He wonders why he cares. He wonders if Sam is ready to leave this life behind yet. Doesn't have to wonder if Dean's ready to lose him.

Gabriel's head tilts as he considers the boy (the man) before him. He raises his hand, staring at it, twitching his fingers one at a time, watching the light from the afternoon sun playing over his own pale skin. Looks back at Sam, and realizes he's smiling, just a little. It feels small and fragile, but it feels important, too.

That dark spot inside Sam is annoying. It shouldn't be there, Gabriel decides.

He snaps his fingers.


End file.
